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Join Date

Aug 2012

Posts

2,026

Originally Posted by SS Laser

Million dollar men should not need an iron thumb to do what is needed and earn there money. One reason the steelers keep vets around forever. Harrison, Ike, Keisel and Polamalu do the offseason work. Antonio Brown followed Ike to do offseason work. Hood did offseason work also. Coaches need to guide the players. Players then need to do what is needed. Some will and stick around. Wallace and Mendy do not seem like they will do all the little things. Woodley better get healthy and do all the off season work. Or he will be on another team at some point.

Fact of the matter is, football players, However well paid, need coaches to push them. For every Jerry Rice there are 500 Lamar Woodleys. NO football team will push themselves as hard as they should. That is why we have coaches and managers, because people will slack off if left on their own, with just a few exceptions.

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Join Date

Jun 2008

Posts

4,452

Originally Posted by lloydroid

Just like Gildong, Kirkland, et al. This team lacks the stones to make the right personnel moves when it needs to. Once they become "buddies" with players, they let the players walk all over them. It was that way under Cowher and it is still that way with Tomlin, meaning it is the OWNERSHIP that chooses to operate this way, not the coaches.

How very true.

It is this kind of soft approach that resulted in a pathetic result of getting to the sb about every third year and winning twice.
We need a coach like (please name one) who has had more success since 2005 than BC and Tomlin

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust & sweat & blood...

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Join Date

Dec 2008

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Inside Your Head

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10,983

Throughout his career, Woodley ebbs and flows. Sometimes he plays great for a string of games. Then sucks for a string. I think it's due to injury a lot. And I think he must play through stuff often. But when he's healthy, he seems to produce.

I'm not so worried about Woodley. Maybe he could work a little harder to condition himself? Perhaps he and Dwyer could start working out with Ike or Harrison?

Can anyone fully process how a team goes 8-8 and misses the playoffs with the No. 1-ranked defense, with a brand-name quarterback who threw for 26 touchdowns against eight picks, with solid talent at the skill positions, all within the context of an awful AFC?

Nope. Me, neither. It was a big mess, deserving of massive and widespread blame.

But that still won‘t stop me from saying this: No one, not any player or coach or executive, let down these 2012 Steelers more than one LaMarr Dewayne Woodley.

And it might not be close.

After yet another afternoon of being engulfed by whatever warm body was playing right tackle for the opponent — zero sacks, five tackles, zero everything else — Woodley finished his season with a grand total of four sacks.

None after Nov. 18.

None in his final 204 snaps.

Forget his other numbers, none of which were any good anyway. Sacks are Woodley‘s game. That‘s how he earned that six-year, $61.5 million extension last summer, by recording 11.5, 13.5, 10 and 9 the previous four seasons. The guy was an undeniable, often unstoppable force.

Take that element out of the defense, and it‘s a whole lot easier to explain the paltry 20 defensive takeaways, which, to my mind, best defined these Steelers‘ shortcomings as a whole: They scared no one. If you seldom put any opponent outside its comfort zone, even Oakland, Tennessee, San Diego and Cleveland can hang around long enough to bite you.

Tomlin had to know he wouldn‘t get the classic James Harrison at the other outside linebacker spot, given Harrison being 34 and coming off knee surgery. But the coach had every right to expect so much more from Woodley, in his prime at 28 and — presumably, anyway — fully recovered from his long-nagging hamstring trouble. He had every right to expect a star.

It never materialized, barely even in a spurt or two.

In fact, to watch how Woodley plodded about the field almost all season, it‘s fair to wonder if it wasn‘t more than the hamstring or a wobbly ankle that was — ahem — weighing him down.

I approached Woodley after this game to ask about his conditioning and much more, but upon being asked, he silently declined and left the room.

Oh, well.

I turned instead to Ziggy Hood, the defensive end who has long lined up next to Woodley.

“There‘s more to LaMarr‘s sacks than just him,” Hood said. “He didn‘t start off healthy and … some plays, you just don‘t get there. There were some games he played well and just wasn‘t blessed with the opportunity to make a play. I wouldn‘t say he had a down year. He played well when he had a chance.”

Woodley isn‘t an easy read. Never has been.

He‘s visibly passionate about his work, even sharing that intimately with his Facebook and Twitter followers. On the day he signed that big contract, he tweeted, “Drafted here … super bowl here ... will retire here!! now time to get u this 7th trophy!!!!”

But it‘s equally apparent that there isn‘t exactly a wealth of self-accountability going on. To hear Woodley tell it, his next bad game will be his first. If he isn‘t getting sacks, it‘s because he‘s dropping into coverage. Or being double-teamed. Or hurt.

Friday night, on a weekly radio show he does with Emmanuel Sanders, Woodley railed against the media, mostly for attaching his contract to his name when criticizing him.

Really?

It‘s only occurring to him now that being paid like a franchise player would raise expectations?

Look, Harrison might or might not be back. I think he will, albeit with a big pay cut. But Woodley definitely will return. It‘s incumbent on him and the coaching staff and the conditioning folks to get him all the way back.

No more explanations for anything less.

No more excuses.

If that doesn‘t happen, don‘t expect this defense — or the Steelers‘ results as a whole — to differ much in 2013.